Tuesday, July 26, 2016

By Blake Crouch

Publisher: Crown

Pub. Date: July 26, 2016

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

You can be forgiven if you think the available descriptions of Dark Matter sound vaguely like Blake Crouch's popular series Wayward Pines.
They both deal with a man who wakes up in an unfamiliar environment and
discovers that what once was may not be. But that is where the
similarity ends. While Wayward Pines has its share of twists and turns, Dark Matter
breaks the barrier with twists and turns. So much so that the
unenviable task of telling the basic plot is fraught with the dangers of
telling too much. But I'll try.

Jason Dessen lives a happy life
with his wife Danielle and his teenage son, Charlie. Yet there is a
slight bit of regret when he realizes that he gave up a potentially
brilliant career in research for a teaching job and his wife abandoned
her blossoming career as a professional artist. This feeling of "what
may have been" isn't helped when his colleague friend wins a major award
in Physics, one that Jason felt he could have pursued and won. As Jason
is out one night, he is abducted by a man with a gun. "How do you feel
about your place in the world, Jason?" the abductor asks. Shortly after,
Jason wakes up in a science lab. He is still himself but nothing else
seems the same.

That is where I will stop the synopsis. Yet it is fitting to examine the title Dark Matter
which is a big hint on where this book is headed. As the novel
explains, dark matter is a theoretical substance in quantum physics that
could lead to the possibility of multiverses. . We get a number of
scientific theories and ideas in the telling of this tale including the
example of the quintessential Schrodinger's Cat. But the author is too
good to lose us in the science. The science becomes entrenched in the
story. Action and theory flow together and merge freely in our
imagination. This is a nerd book for non-nerds, so to speak. Crouch
never loses the human aspect of the story. Jason becomes very real and
very conflicted to the reader which heightens our tension and our
empathy.

The excitement in Dark Matter is created by how
the plot moves into so many other areas but never leaves the emotional
focus of our protagonist. This is not a science fiction story that trips
up itself in technical issues. It is a human story that exists hand and
hand with the science. There is no doubt that this will appeal to the
science fiction fan, especially those who love books dealing with
alternate realities and multiverses. Yet Dark Matter has a
distinct mainstream appeal for those who like books about the burden of
life decisions and our uncertainty about the ones we make. Despite a
very satisfactory ending, the author leaves things a bit open at the end
and is screaming for a sequel. Indeed it is ripe for another of Blake
Crouch's series. That is a series that I can become truly excited about.
Dark Matter has all the makings of a mainstream crossover
novel and I would not be surprised if it became the summer hit of 2016.
There is no doubt it is, so far, the best science fiction novel of the
year.

Saturday, July 23, 2016

By Jasper Barks

Publisher: Crystal Lake Publishing

Pub. Date: June 10. 2015

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

I like Jasper Bark’s style. If the two pieces of short fiction in Run to Ground
are prime examples, his writings are a deft combination of hardcore
pulp fiction and moral tale. Clive Barker meets Mrs. Piggle Wiggle.
Bark’s main characters in these two stories are not the most likeable
characters. In fact, they are fairly repulsive. They are thrown into a
fate that may be excessive but oh so delicious in a “eww, gross” sort of
way.

Take the title story. The main character Jim McLeod is a
man who makes a career out of running away from life, commitments, and
responsibility. But when we meet him he is doing a different kind of
running away from creatures in a cemetery that are devouring his only
friends. We are given flashbacks to help us understand how this horror
came to our protagonist and it isn’t pretty. When we get to the end we
end up with a weird mixture of glee and angst. Bark may have developed
an almost perfect blend of back story in this short tale where past and
present blends together in the horror. The terror hits early and hard
yet the flashbacks do not slow it down yet makes us only more willing to
meet the shock at the end.

The author isn’t happy with the
usual monster chase. “Somehow it was possessing the soil, like a
vengeful spirit, converting the earth to whatever it was, then releasing
it as it moved alongside the path in pursuit of him.” Bark’s strength
is in creating creatures we haven’t seen before and then making them as
real as any other monsters that grace the pages of a horror novel. This
is also true of the second story, “How the Dark Bleeds”. We are
introduced to a questionably sane woman and find out more as the story
continues. We are also thrown into a legend that gives us another
strange and unique monster. Bark seems to excel in that strange
sub-genre of body horror and he revels in it beautifully.

Both
tales read fast and furious. They are nice examples of pulp horror and
they deliver a big kick for the money. The author states they are part
of a series of stories based on The Quar’m Saddic Heresy. It adds a nice
Lovecraftian tone to the fiction. There is even a short scholarly essay
added that explains the heresy. It fooled me enough to google it! In
the edition that I read there is also two excerpts from his novel, The Final Cut which is not reviewed here.
I
was pleasantly surprised by Jasper Bark. He is one of those writers
that showed up out of the dark and dropped a little bomb into my
knowledge of horror. He is the kind of writer that should get more
recognition. Run to Ground should be enough for most readers to get hooked into his pulp horror world.

Wednesday, July 20, 2016

By Donald Ray Pollock

Publisher: Doubleday

Pub.Date: July 12, 2016

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

Southern Gothic is alive and well and generously dosed with a bit of Hillbilly Crime Noir and Redneck Existentialism in The Heavenly Table
by Donald Ray Pollock. This is his third book and with it, he has
pretty much cemented his status as the 21th century’s answer to William
Faulkner, Flannery O’Connor and Cormac McCarthy all rolled into one. In
his first two books, He introduced us to the town of Knockemstiff, Ohio
and in this one, he turns Meade, Ohio of 1917 into a tableau of
down-and-outs, barely surviving farmers and townsmen, and the outcasts
beyond and between the law.

In The Heavenly Table we are
introduced to the Jewett Family, Pearle and his three sons named Kane,
Cob, and Chimney, who barely make a living sharecropping and often
surviving on anything they can scrounge off the land. Pearle tells his
boys they suffer now so they can eat off the heavenly table after death.
Yet when their father passes away, they decide to emulate their
fictional Pulp Western book Hero Bloody Bill Bucket and take to robbing
banks. With the reluctant acceptance of slow-in-the-mind Cob, they are
willing to sacrifice the heavenly table for more earthly comforts even
if it means violence and bloodshed. Their exploits take them from
Alabama and on the way to Canada until everyone meets up in Meade, Ohio.

By
“everyone”, I mean a slew of characters ranging from a farmer and his
wife who loses their savings, a gay soldier who hopes to meet his death
in glory in the battlefields of World War II, an outhouse inspector
cursed with a large piece of biological equipment, a black out of jail
bum who is easily used and abused by pretty much everyone, and a
bartender with a gruesome secret. While the Jewett brothers are the
focal point of the novel, Pollock weaves all these tales together to
form a world of his own with a desperation all its own.

Pollock’s
world view may seem a bit rough. There is a lot of violence and a lot
of cold-blooded and mean behavior but it is tempered with the author’s
uniquely dark humor that acknowledged a good human nature trying to dig
its way out. There is just enough tenderness in the hard lives of these
characters to keep you interested and involved. There may be a lot of
cruelty but few of them are evil. Most of them are surviving in the only
way they know how. That is why I found this novel to be so incredible.
The insightful prose never stops. There are many eloquent passages about
the nature of man and society…

“As blind as he was
to most of his defects, even Powys knew that the first thing a man lost
when he entered politics was his humanity.”

One of
the few comparisons to Pollock’s Ohio tableau in literature may be
Faulkner’s fictional Yoknapatawpha County, although Pollock’s Meade and,
the earlier used Knockemstiff are actual Ohio locations. Both literary
landscapes take a slice of America and populate it with characters that
sing off the pages. Yet Pollack has the cynicism of Flannery O’Connor
and the sparse realism of Cormac McCarthy to spice up his form of
storytelling. And storytelling is exactly what the author is doing by
weaving a variety of stories to make an exquisite whole.

Donald
Ray Pollock, for my money, is the most exciting American author actively
writing. He has solidified his own unique style with three books. Any
of the three are well worth reading but The Heavenly Table is
the most complex and original of the three. If this doesn’t make the top
five novels on any reviewers list this year then something is not right
with the world.

Wednesday, July 13, 2016

By Nicole Cushing

Publisher: 01publishing

Pub. Date: April 5, 2015

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Ellie is in a loveless marriage and a loveless life. She
believes she is a lesbian but her strict religious upbringing and her
stifling marriage has blocked any attempts to explore these feelings. A
yearning to explore her desires and an overwhelming hopelessness which
sparks an urge to die leads her to a secret internet group that pairs
partners for suicide. Lori, who Ellie sees as a kindred spirit,
convinces her to leave her husband and come to her for a final night of
sex and death. What Ellie does not know is that Lori has ulterior
motives having to do with cheating God (or is it the Devil?) who she
believes is the father of her child.

Nicole Cushing writes
bizarre erotic horror that is not for everyone. There is a darkness in
her stories that is generously laced with sexual kink, body horror, and a
deeply repressive nihilism. Her writing is also quite beautiful. In The Sadist’s Bible,
we are thrown head-on into Ellie’s ennui. “She dressed without fanfare.
She dreamed without fanfare. It seemed the only way to live.” So when
she is given a way out, no matter how destructive it may seem to us, we
feel her anticipation and doubt even though we know she is headed into a
nightmare. Lori is more of an enigma to the reader. She is deceitful
and crazy but perhaps not delusional. As Ellie gets closer to her date
with suicide, we discover more about the forces that are involved. It
becomes a bleak and scary downhill ride and the author doesn’t pull any
punches. There is an exquisite balance of terror, repulsion and beauty
in her descriptions. I am not always sure I like what I read but the
amazing prose keeps me there.

And that is the dilemma for me. The Sadist’s Bible
is beautiful but at the same time is unpleasant and immensely
disturbing. But it is the kind of disturbing that keeps you thinking
about it long after you turned the last page. There is an almost
Dante-esque quality in Ellie’s journey into her personal hell. It is
hard to say if there is a definitive theme here but I would say it is
about Humankind’s battle between a mundane existence and a yearning for
the forbidden and visceral excitement that often results in destruction.
Ellie would prefer death over monotony even if that “death” leads to an
existence more terrible than life. Or maybe, because it does?

Whatever the meaning you get out of The Sadist’s Bible,
the power of the writing is unmistakable. You may find yourself
cringing at some parts yet this is the type of hardcore horror novel
that will reward the brave. I think you will understand me when I say I
may not have liked it but I still loved it. It is a book worth
experiencing.

Monday, July 11, 2016

By Brian Keene

Publisher: Thomas Dunn Books

Pub. Date: June 21, 2016

Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

It's time for summer reading. When I travel I try to pick novels that
fit the environment. Going to Washington DC? A juicy political novel.
The South? Southern Gothic or maybe a James Lee Burke mystery depending
on my mood. The Southwest? Edward Abbey or Hillerman is a must. Canada
or Alaska? Something on the frigid side like a Robert W. Service
collection or Dan Simmon's The Terror which actually got me
turning up the thermostat a few degrees. But if you are going to the
beach I have just the thing for you this year. Brian Keene's Pressure,
which takes place on and slightly off the island of Mauritius, has the
perfect ocean vibes with its sea diving and maritime scares.

In Pressure,
The sea shelf around Mauritius is collapsing. A crew of scientists
including free diver and marine biologist Carrie Anderson are trying to
find out why. One of her dives result in the death of her co-diver and
hits Carrie with a number of odd injuries including hallucinations which
causes her to be hospitalized. But she also saw something large, dark
and terrifying which sends her back into the waters to explore. What she
and her companions discover is something that a large and corrupt
corporation wants to keep a secret and is willing to kill for in order
to accomplish that task.

Brian Keene is known mostly for his horror novels and Pressure
certainly has some horrifying sections especially as we meet the
creature. Yet it is more of a techno-thriller in the style of Crichton
or Preston & Child than a horror novel. It is a good techno-thriller
yet it caught me off guard especially at the beginning of the book
where strange occurrences like plummeting temperatures and deadly
hallucinations broadcasted something different in the mind of the horror
fanatic I am. But once I acclimated to the thriller and corporate greed
aspects, I was on board. Carrie Anderson is a likable and spunky
character . Her two main companions also have essential characteristics
that are stalwarts of the techno/horror thriller. There are plenty of
seedy and untrustworthy types around to throw our heroine into more
trouble. Yet where the book works best is under the sea and on the ship
where we experience the horrors that the author appears most comfortable
with. It is appropriately weird and terrifying. But later we hit the
shoreline and the corporate baddies take over. It becomes fun but a bit
underwhelming compared to the first half. I guess I would rather read
about Carrie confronting unspeakable horrors rather than unspeakable
business practices.

Surface is entertaining but having
read much from the author, I came away pleased but not thrilled. I
prefer his novels where he is throwing zombies at us or delightfully
destroying the world over and over again. This is one of those times
that I must take in account what I know the author can do and what he is
currently offering. That makes it a good but not remarkable endeavor.
Yet if you are looking for that summer read in the techno-thriller
market, you just might find Pressure to fit the bill and may be
even a little above average for the genre. For now, I will give it my
beach read for the summer recommendation and leave it at that.

Sunday, July 10, 2016

By Jason Ciaramella (illustrations by Greg Murphy)

Publisher: ComixTribe

Pub. Date: 2015

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

We must prepare for the rising of unspeakable horror upon our planet. No,
I am not talking about David Icke's Reptilians or ISIS or even The
Donald.

I am speaking about the Old Ones.

H. P Lovecraft
warned us about them and the insanity and destruction that will follow.
It is inevitable. However, we can prepare for it. And most importantly,
we can prepare our children in realizing that which cannot be named or
described, and likely to drive you insane as an adult, can still be seen
as friendly and cuddly.

Cuddly Cthulhu.

Jason Ciaramella has paved the way with this cute book titled C is for Cthulhu.
This is an alphabet board book designed to please your little darling
and help them become the harbingers of evil and destruction that the
ancient ones will appreciate. How can one be scared of a
sleeping red Chthulu or Q'yth-az ("Don't worry, she doesn't bite") or
Soggoth ("Chomp chomp chomp...BURP!").

It is also a very nice travel
book.

We
adults can also learn from it and will get as much of a kick as our
children from the illustrations by Greg Murphy. Very colorful and cute
in a "Awww. Monster!" way yet it still manages to depict a eerie
Lovecraftian aura over the most positive childhood environment.

So
the next time your child asks, "Mommy? What is that thing lumbering
slobberingly into sight and gropingly squeezing Its gelatinous green
immensity through the black doorway into the tainted outside air of that
poison city of madness?". You can just hand him this book and let him
learn in the confines of his dungeo...er...bedroom about all the
terrible and unspeakable horrors that will creep in and cuddle him to
sleep. Perhaps H. P Lovecraft was right when he said, "“It is a mistake
to fancy that horror is associated inextricably with darkness, silence,
and solitude.” Sometimes it comes in pretty colors and darling little
monster drawings.

Wednesday, July 6, 2016

By Alexandra Oliva

Publisher: Ballantine Books

Pub. Date: July 12, 2016

Rating: 2 & 1/2 out of 5 stars

I must admit I have never been a fan of reality TV shows,
mainly because they are as far from reality as humans can get without
calling it a fantasy. I did get into Survivor for the first
three seasons until I realize I could pick out what was scripted and
predict every move. And I still regard the very entertaining but phony Pawn Stars as one of my guilty pleasures. That was only one reason I was looking forward to The Last One
by Alexandra Oliva which, for most of the hype, appeared to be using
the setting of a fictional reality show as a microcosm for human society
and for examining the media's manufactured blend of reality and
fiction.

In The Last One 12 people are appearing in a new reality show that is a cross between Survivor and The Great Race.
It is a different type of reality show in that the participants compete
in a "race" where, unknown to them, there is no finish line. They
continue until one is left standing and their only way out is to
surrender before the end is by saying the words, Ad Tenebrus Dedi.
The contestant nicknamed Zoo is on a solo challenge and strays off. She
comes across signs of devastation which she thinks is part of the game.
Little does she know that the world is experiencing an event of
apocalyptic proportions.

The idea is inspired and, at first, the
implementation is brilliant. it starts with a prologue that shows the
series being structured and gives us a hint of the global disaster to
come. After that we get alternating chapters with different
perspectives. One is in the first narrative of Zoo as she wanders
thinking she is still in the game. The other is third person in which we
follow all the contestants as it leads from the beginning to the end.
We get a feel for the contestants who are known by their nicknames: Zoo,
Rancher, Waitress, Engineer Girl, Black Doctor...yes that last one
seems a little off. They resemble not only the stereotypes you see in
reality shows but a microcosm of civilization. We learn their real names
gradually. Some readers seem to have trouble pairing them with the
nicknames but I did not find that an issue. Add to this, the author's
clear mastery of her writing style. It is unarguably well written and it
carried the story to the finish line.

Yet by the end of the
first half of the novel, the brilliance seems to slip away. Zoo is still
thinking she is in the game even when everything screams, "No!". The
appearance of an young man stretches it to the point of absurdity when
she thinks he is the cameraman. We are led to believe that Zoo is very
smart yet that assumption is quickly going out the window due to the
need to continue this hard to believe scenario. Back at the game, I am
wondering what the payoff is, and I mean the payoff for the reader not
the participants. With our cast of stereotyped characters and their
related actions, I started to wonder if we are seeing an attempt at a Lord of the Flies/Animal Farm
styled analogy yet that doesn't really work either. In a way this is a
beautiful example of the need for expectation, execution, and finish in a
novel. The expectation is beautifully set up. The execution is good at
the beginning yet doesn't follow through. And the finish is a whimper.

I
wish I could recommend this. Oliva certainly has a home-run novel in
her. But this one makes it to third base and get tagged. I do seem in
the minority though. . Being the author's first novel, it bodes well for
things to come. But all in all, and considering the great start, it
ends up a disappointment. I still recommend it over most reality TV
shows though.

Friday, July 1, 2016

Blister

By Jeff Strand

Publisher: Sinister Grin Press

Pub Date: June 21, 2016

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

Sometimes covers and descriptions for novels can be slightly deceptive. Blister
is a good example of this. From the somewhat disturbing cover it
appears to be a horror story. The description on the book tends to
confirm this. Yet after reading this alternatively funny and intense
book, I think that is too simplistic a term. Blister is a constantly entertaining tale that has large parts of comedy, horror and mystery and maybe even a love story.

Blister
centers on a sometimes immature but successful cartoonist named Jason
Tray. Due to one of those immature moments, he is persuaded to retreat
to his agent's cabin near a small lake town. While at a bar, his new
drunk friends take him to peek at the local scary legend, a hideously
burned and damaged woman who is kept secluded by her father. Jason is
shocked by what he sees and also shamed by his actions. He goes back the
next day to apologize and finds , as we should already know, that what
we are is not necessary apparent on the surface.

This is what Blister
is about but it is also about closely guarded secrets and decisions
that haunt us for a long time. We find out early what happened to the
burned woman yet that doesn't mean we know everything, as least not yet.
The characters of Blister range from well-intended to ghoulishly crazy yet they all seem real enough to involve us in the tale.

Strand's
big gift is the ability to make us laugh at even the strangest and most
twisted moments. There is a lot of humor in this novel yet when the
serious stuff starts, the humor doesn't put us off. It a natural humor
that comes from acknowledging the bad as well as the good. There are two
authors that seems to have a real gift at portraying wit in a natural
dialogue that sees the humor in even the scariest times. One is Joe R.
Lansdale and the other is Jeff Strand.

Blister despite
its horror designation works best as a mystery and as a story about
unlikely friendships. I say this not to put off the horror fans, to
which I owe a great part of my readership to, but to encourage those who
do not like horror that much to give it a try, Yes I know there are a
few of those out there. Hi mom! You guys! Ignore the scary cover and be
prepared to laugh, to cry...just read the damn thing okay?

About Me

My name is Marvin P. Vernon and I am a retired social worker who specialized in family therapy and domestic violence prevention. In the past, I have been a contributor to the Fact on File Student Thesaurus and currently pass my time as an avid reader and reviewer. I also work as a volunteer librarian at the Sun City Palm Desert Library. You can also find my reviews on Goodreads You can contact me at mpvernon5149@yahoo.com